David Bowie - Earthling

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Music reviews of Earthling

Music Review: I take it back...THIS IS A GREAT ALBUM!
Rating: 5 Stars

On to the songs...

"Little Wonder": I always liked this song second to "I'm Afraid of Americans," mainly because it was the one that most instantly appealed to me. Immediately we have Gabrels' edgy squeaking guitars, a driving beat, with lyrics that seem so random that it could only be Bowie. I fail to see why people disapprove of this as the lead-off single.

"Looking for Satellites": Again, a catchy chorus of random words, with a bit more subdued rhythm that still makes you want to get up and dance. Gabrels' long solo at the end is far more complex than many people realize (he only played on one string at a time for every chord change, until he reached the top string). A strange song at best, but appropriate for the oddness that surrounds Bowie's music, most especially for this album.

"Battle for Britain (The Letter)": Mike Garson's piano on this is as hectic as ever, but it is all the more welcome for it. One would not think that his style of playing would fit a song that hits you with a fast syncopated techno beat and Gabrels' crushing guitar riffs. A great song for dub remixes.

"Seven Years in Tibet": This song is the closest you can get on this album to anything resembling classic Bowie. It begins slowly and quietly with an almost jazzy backdrop and a slow dance beat (similar to the one used by NIN on "Closer," but don't be fooled...it isn't a sample from that song). The song then picks up with a crashing guitars that eventually fade out into a trippy keyboard line. Hypnotizing, though I will admit it is not a song that caught my fancy as immediately as most of the rest of the album. Stripped down, it would not have been out of place on any of Bowie's past albums from the '70's.

"Dead Man Walking": The most raving song on the album in my opinion. The intro keyboard is something you'd expect on an Autechre or Orbital album. It may at this point become evident that Gabrels might have gone overboard with the volume control on his Roland VG-8 soundboard (Check out Guitar Player Magazine's back catalog for the interviews with him and Bowie about this album), but it hardly hurts the appeal of the album (though it may hurt your ears).

"Telling Lies": Without having heard the infamous "original version" that was released exclusively on the internet, and that everyone in the world has heard except for myself, I can't say much about this song other than it is almost a clone of "Battle for Britain (The Letter)." If this song were on another Bowie album, maybe that would have been a bad thing, but here...it somehow seems to fit and retain it's own character.

"The Last Thing You Should Do": "Haunting" is all I have to say about this song.

"I'm Afraid of Americans": My favorite song on the album. When I first heard it, it was from the video of the NIN remix version 1, and most people who liked the song were telling me that the NIN remix was far superior. I let them fool me for a long time, for I love NIN, but I love this album version a lot better. Again, there is an earlier version from the "Showgirls" soundtrack that I haven't heard, so...I can't say much more about the song. The lyrics are by far my favorite, and to this day remains my favorite song on the album.

"Law (Earthlings on Fire)": "Trippy" AND "Haunting." This is a perfect ending for an album that is as erratic as it is good. The opening voice "I don't want knowledge, I want certainty" finally portrays the 1984-ish quality not only of the world we live in now, but also finally gets the message Bowie had been trying to get across to us for 20 years. Granted that message was stolen from Orwell and other pessimistic futurists, but Bowie's message was transmutated into something more positive by daring us to get up and dance. This closing song does just that.

Overall, this album has finally grown on me to become one of my favorite albums of all time. I rarely listen to it without going from beginning to end. It has even helped to inspire the sound of the band that I am in myself to the extent that Bowie's experimentation with a genre that "the youngsters seem to have a stranglehold on" (my best impression of a 50-year-old musician who knows he can outdo all of them) is something to behold. And he does outdo them all. Forget NIN, forget Aphex Twin, forget Orbital, this is among the best electronic albums ever made, among the best alternative albums of all time, and one of Bowie's best albums since "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)."

Dance...dammit...dance!

Description of Earthling

Alternative Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Classic Rock
• Hard Rock & Metal
• Pop
• Rock